That's crazy, probably explains why people invest in steel for beds and pay for the plastic formed tubs over there because it's cheaper than wood or not much more expensive... We are fortunate to have Canadians to the north of us who like to sell us cheap lumber (not really, it's really a sore subject that their best lumber gets sold to the US so they have poor quality lumber selection too).

We probably export more timber than we use here, all or most of the house frames are now steel, and you don't see any weatherboard houses being built anymore, all the cheaper houses are cement sheet rendered now.

I love working with timber but it's a luxury now, a lot of patio decking is now PVC and Wood Plastic Composite Flooring is starting to be used more often now.

Same here with the PVC and composite decking, but it's still new enough here that it's still a huge upcharge to go with those engineered products vs. lumber decking because they sell the longevity of it. I can replace my wood decking two or three times before it pays for the PVC or composite decking... I haven't seen any of them around for that length of time to see if it will last longer for the price, but I'm only 33 years old, it's probably only been the past twenty years or less that they've been promoting it here so I think that is still within that 2-3x lifespan.

We harvested beets, radishes, carrots, broccoli out of the hoop house over the weekend. It has been a lot of work getting all of this going but I couldn't be more satisfied when I sit down to eat a meal that was completely grown or raised on my land.

We had turnip greens last week which was a first for us but turned out good. I had a salad today that was mostly spinach, kale, and Swiss chard and I think I like the Swiss chard for salad as well or better than any lettuce I've grown, which is good news because I'm pretty good growing Swiss chard, not so good growing lettuce. I need to try some lettuce direct seeded in dirt to see if I have better luck with it. I have some nice iceberg right now but it's loose leaf not forming a head.

We have been pulling onions as we need them. They aren't huge bulbs but they are tasty.

I have a zuchini plant in the hoop house that is huge. It might take over the world.

Cucs starting to climb my trellis.. have buds on them. Luffa is climbing too but no buds yet. So much going on right now.

This is the zuchini / summer squash that is trying to take over the world. It is getting huge. A couple of buds closed up starting to grow so will see what it is soon. I have green and yellow so not sure what it is but it sure likes being in the hoop house.

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Watermelon spreading out. I'm going to try and keep it contained and will probably cut the vines once I see melons growing so it puts energy into the melon instead of vines because the last two years they didn't have time to ripen so hope doing it in the hoop house will ripen it faster.

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First year trying to grow luffa... It's climbing so hopefully we will get something.

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First cucs/pickles. Wife picked these tonight before they get seedy.

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Taters are blooming. Doing good in the hoop house but using a lot of bed space.. probably won't do this again but I guess we will see how many we get if there's more than I've ever got before then maybe we will.

So my buddy told me last night that they have the high tunnels on the ground. The wife isn't thrilled about me buying one of them but said if I must then she doesn't want me going any bigger than the existing garden length N-S or the existing hoop house E-W... So that means I'm approved for about 40-65ft depending on what direction I decide to place it. Told my buddy to give me a price on 80ft (half of a tunnel) so I could shrink it down to the size I want and just reduce spacing to increase snow load. So fingers crossed he comes back with a decent price that I can manage to squeeze into my budget and I will head down with the trailer to bring it home.

Thanks Jo. We are happy with the investment. Still a lot to learn and a bit of work to do to get it all how we want it but it will get there eventually.

If I buy the high tunnel from my buddy I'm thinking it's going to be a summer aquaponic system (maybe winter too for some greens) with hopefully year round aquaculture system. Of course that will all depend on if having the heat during the day will be enough to keep the water from freezing or if it does freeze if it will thaw during the day in dead of winter. I know my best bet for that would be to have it run east west but trying to find info on solar gains of north south tunnels too because the space I have I would like it closer to the greenhouse but it would have to run north south there or I have to put it out past the hoop house to run east west and I haven't ran electric out that far yet.

We cleaned out the peas, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and weeded all of the beds today. Only thing left in the hoop house is tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, luffa and swish chard. Need to add compost then will be planting our fall/winter crops.

Been a busy summer, but we are still harvesting! Just planted a bunch of stuff that I'm hoping will still make it in time to carry it through the winter. Our temps took a major turn down this week. Need to get the hoop house closed up for winter soon, but should still be pretty nice in there for a while so hoping seeds sprout ok.

This was tonight's harvest of stuff, haven't done a good job keeping up with it lately which has resulted in some not so exciting dinners lately... I told the wife we had greens up for salads she needed to go pick so she went out with me tonight, this hopefully means we will have better dinners this week because harvest season is marching on in the hoop house (probably about done in the garden but still have a bunch of stuff to clean out yet, should be ok another week or two before major frost threats)

I have almost finished replanting all of the hoop house space for our first attempt at winter growing. We still have a few things holding over from summer but most of the stuff that has finished we have pulled then added finished compost and planting directly into the compost for winter plants. I need to get another load of compost to add to all of our garden beds before winter... I've only got two weekends left to get stuff done because then the following three weekends I have my NAUI instructor training course, which takes me in to mid November, then hunting season starts and snow is not far behind (well actually bow season started today but I don't have time for bow season, will wait for gun season when I always take time off work when my dad comes to visit).

I have planted a bunch of other stuff over the past week that hasn't sprouted yet. I am also going to use these plants started in the hoop house to hopefully fill the AP beds once they get bigger and I need to thin the out.

My winter growing season has officially arrived. Went to the hoop house tonight and it smells like dead rotting plants. The past three nights have been near freezing and we did not manage to get beds covered so the tomato and luffa plants in the hoop house are dead. Terrible timing of course as I start my scuba instructor class tomorrow night which goes all weekend sun up to well after sun down so I will not likely manage to clean it up until some night after work next week. I did cover most of the beds in the hoop house now but the rest of the stuff out there shouldn't mind the cold.

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